


Up and Up and Up

by ishipalot



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Childhood, Children, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I swear, M/M, Terminal Illnesses, idk what else to tag, there's really more of a focus on their cuteness though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-14
Updated: 2014-01-14
Packaged: 2018-01-08 16:31:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishipalot/pseuds/ishipalot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Louis are best friends, have been for as long as they can remember. Harry gets sick and that doesn't change things as much as it probably should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up and Up and Up

**Author's Note:**

> I tried okay i'm sorry

“Goal!” Louis cheered, standing up on his bench. “Good job, Harry!”

A gangly teenaged boy emerged from the mob that was his teammates, all cherubic cheeks and plastered down curls, coloured almost as dark as Louis’ from the rain. “Lou,” he laughed. “You should sit down; coach is giving you the stink eye.”

Louis stepped down from his perch, carefully avoiding his coach’s glare in favour of rewarding his friend with a bone-crushing hug. “To hell with that,” he whispered conspiringly. He took a step back, tilting his face into the downpour, luxuriating in the cool spray washing away his perspiration.

Harry regarded him fondly for a moment before shaking his hair out, water droplets splattering everywhere. “I’m going to take a shower. See you later?”

Louis shrugged noncommittally. They saw each other so often that it wasn’t even a question. Of course they would see each other later.

~*~

Two weeks later and Louis was walking down the corridor of the city’s pediatric hospital. It was obvious that the staff had tried to make it as cheerful as possible, but no amount of decorating could mask the nearly overpowering odour of antiseptic nor the dread in the pit of his stomach.

The delivery time of the email from Harry showed that it had been sent in the wee hours of the morning, which just served to further the anxiety rippling underneath his skin. Nothing good happens after midnight.

He paused in front of Harry’s supposed room, the door handle sweaty in his grasp, to collect himself before he pushed open the door.

The whiteboard on the far wall had a message from Harry’s mom, stating that she went out, along with her phone number hastily scrawled under it.

Harry lay crumpled beneath mounds of blankets, visibly shivering in his sleep. He startled with a pitiful cry, sitting up and pushing light brown curls out of his face. He blinked, obviously disoriented, before he noticed Louis hovering inside the doorway. “Lou,” he croaked, offering a weak but genuine smile.

“Hey bud,” Louis smiled back, but it felt more pained than anything. “How are you?” He crossed the room to sit on the bed, mindful of the IV hooked up to his hand.

Harry lifted a shoulder. “I’ve been better. Could you pass me the water?”

The other boy handed the cup of water over, watchful as he drank thirstily. “Haven’t they been giving you water?”

“Yeah, but they had to give me anesthesia for a biopsy today,” he continued to drink. “And then I had a bone scan yesterday morning and the stuff they gave me made me all thirsty.” He paused to grin excitedly. “It was radioactive material and it made me glow.”

The other boy forced a chuckle. “Oh.” Louis let his gaze wander to the IV pole, watching the drips as they made their way through the tubes and into Harry’s veins. It made him squeamish. “What were they testing for?”

The copper haired boy shrugged again, in that moment looking very young. “Something’s wrong with my knee, they said. We’ll find out later.”

The door creaked open, revealing Harry’s mom, her dark hair scraped back into a ponytail and carrying what Louis recognized as the largest size to-go cup of coffee. “Hi Lou,” she greeted, clearly exhausted. “How are you feeling, Harry? Any better?”

Harry shook his head. “You can go home, you know. The doctors said they won’t have test results until later.” He shook his head again insistently when his mom looked like she was going to argue. “You’re overtired. I’m fine, really.”

His mom looked between them and sighed resignedly. “I’ll be back in three hours,” she promised, walking out the door.

Harry visibly deflated in his bed. “Let’s watch a movie,” he suggested.

And if the afternoon was spent watching Bambi, no one had to know.

~*~

Louis was beginning to realize that not only did nothing good happen after midnight, but nothing good arrived in an email. It was addressed from Harry and it had a simple, almost pitifully hesitant question: “Can you come?”

So once again Louis was seated in his best friend’s hospital bed, the only difference being that this time Harry was inconsolable, heaving great sobs from where he was curled into Louis. He was really much too tall to be in this position, his legs folded until they were touching his chest; his head was tucked under Louis’ chin, and his face was pressed into his neck.

“Shh,” Louis soothed, running a hand down the expanse of the other boy’s back. “Just breathe; I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

It took more than a few tries, but Harry’s breathing returned to a normal rhythm, interrupted only by the odd snuffle. “It’s in my knee,” he sniffed. “All around it. The whole thing is useless.” A lone tear escaped from beneath his starry lashes, clumped together as they were with drying tears.

Louis kept quiet for a long moment, letting the information register. “So, they can help you, right?” His words were loud in the near silence of the room, the only other sound being the obnoxious beeping of the IV pole regulating Harry’s fluids and lipids and all the things that kept him going.

Harry let out a laugh, dry and unhumourous. “Oh, sure, just that they said they can’t cure me. That’s what the doctor said. Can you believe it?” His anger faded as quickly as it had come, and he collapsed into Louis’ hold. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed against the fabric of his t-shirt.

Louis shook his head, carding his fingers through the tangled, dirty locks of his hair. “You have nothing to be sorry for,” he murmured back.

Once Harry was asleep he had called his mom, and it hadn’t taken much convincing for her to let him stay overnight. As it was, he found himself on the room’s laptop searching various treatment options for cancer until the wee hours of the morning.

There were a lot of different drugs, each more like a tongue twister than a name, and all of the side effects were more or less the same: hair loss, vomiting, mouth sores, ulcers in the intestinal tract, and a weakened immune system. It was overwhelming; every so often he would glance over at the figure in the bed, all knobbly knees and too long legs, barely into his growth spurt, and it made him want to retch. He was still so young, so innocent - hell, he didn’t even know what porn was yet - and here he was ready to be experimented on as the doctors dueled with the offending cells in his body.

Harry was two weeks shy of his fifteenth birthday.

~*~

Louis was awoken abruptly the next morning, sitting up in the fold-out chair with the sound of the door banging into the wall behind it.

In marched a medical team, all too-sterile white coats and too-full binders and too-bright smiles. “Good morning,” a woman chirped. “You can call me Susan; I’ll be your oncologist.” She glanced around for a moment, noticing the absence of an adult. “Is a parent with you at all today?”

Harry shook his head, somehow looking even more miniscule compared to the large medical team assembled around him. “She should be back for about ten.”

Susan nodded briskly. “That’s fine, we can fill her in later.” She turned towards Louis. “And who is this?”

“That’s my friend Louis.”

A flash of a smile. “Hello Louis, glad you could join us this morning.” She referred to her binder, flipping through a few pages before speaking again. “So as I’m sure you’ve heard, a mass has been found in your knee. The fancy word for what you have is localized parosteal osteosarcoma, because the primary tumour is contained to the muscle in the lower end of your thighbone.”

She perched on the edge of his bed, her hand hovering over his leg. “May I?” At Harry’s consent, she continued her explanation, her hand touching just above his swollen knee. “All of this here is where the main part of your cancer is, and it’s grown to about here.” She moved her hand so that it was towards the middle of his kneecap.

“The good part about this,” she smiled, “is that it’s relatively slow growing. We don’t expect to have too much trouble with this, and our orthopedic surgeon over here has lots of experience with osteosarcoma patients.”

The man who Louis guessed to be the orthopedic surgeon waved, offering a slight smile of his own.

“How are you doing so far, sweetie,” she asked Harry kindly, patting his foot. “Does everything make sense so far, or do you want me to slow down?”

Harry shook his head slowly, processing. “Why is there a surgeon?”

Susan smiled again - too much smiling, honestly. “That’s a really good question. So far, your treatment plan has been made - don’t worry, we’ll fill your mom in when she comes back. Tonight, with your mom’s approval, we are going to place your central line.” Upon seeing his confusion, she explained further. “A central line is basically just an IV like what’s in your hand, except we’re going to put you under anaesthesia again to put it into your chest, just under your collarbone. Yours is called a ‘hickman line’, so there will be two tubes hanging out of it, and that’s where your chemo will go into.”

“Okay,” Harry interrupted impatiently, “But why is there a surgeon?”

“That’s for the second part of your treatment. After chemo we will reevaluate, but right now we are looking at an amputation. We can discuss that later, though.”

“Amputation,” Louis repeated, recalling his research from the previous night. “But isn’t that taking his leg away?”

The oncologist nodded grimly. “Not now. Right now is chemotherapy.”

Louis felt sick all over again. He was saved from having to reply when Harry’s mother walked into the room, face draining of all colour once she noticed the sheer number of medical professionals. “Sorry,” she apologized. “Perhaps you could fill me in outside?”

“You’re going to be just fine,” Susan encouraged before standing up and striding out the door, medical team in tow.

By now Harry had tucked his legs back up to his chest, hugging them as if his life depended on it.

Scrambling to his feet, Louis climbed under the blankets with his friend, tugging him into his arms, rocking them both back and forth. He was whispering nonsensical things into his ear, anything that might help, but he didn’t really know how. What do you tell your friend when they find out their leg is going to be removed and everything they’ve ever known is about to be taken away?

And so, he does the only thing an adolescent boy should do. “Hey Harry, what do you say we play some FIFA?”

The answering smile was brilliant, and they passed the next six hours playing until the anesthesiologist arrived to introduced himself.

And if Louis was willing to do anything to bring that smile out, nobody else had to know.

~*~

It had been two days since he’d last seen Harry. Two days too long, in Louis’ opinion, but his mother was adamant that he went to school and tried to regain a sense of normalcy - mothers’ know best and all that.

The placement of Harry’s IV port went fine; he had called the moment the anesthesia had worn off enough that he could actually speak coherently. But Louis was restless and wanted to see his friend before the side effects from the chemotherapy were noticeable and he couldn’t pretend this wasn’t happening.

It had taken some arguing, but, once again, Louis found himself in the elevator going up to the oncology ward. One floor before his stop, the doors opened to allow a father and his little boy to step on. The father had the telltale signs of a hospital parent: the dark circles underneath his eyes, the slightly wrinkled clothes from sleeping in the parents’ lounge, and the plastered on smile worthy of a toothpaste commercial; his son was pale and skinny, almost grotesquely so, with a thin tube threaded into his nose that was taped to his face. The only thing that really stood out for Louis was the scar running the length of his bald little head.

He couldn’t get off the elevator fast enough.

Today, Harry was shirtless, the skin around his central line a sore-looking bright crimson. The IV pole beside him carried four different bags of toxic fluid and fed into one of the tubes in his chest. If that was taken away he would have looked like any other teenaged boy, especially with the way his gaze was transfixed on the television in front of him, controller in hand.

“Hiya,” Louis called, dropping his school bag onto the visitors’ chair before climbing into bed. Their shoulders knocked together in the narrow space. “How’re you?” He hooked his chin over Harry’s shoulder so he could see the game better.

“‘m alright. Got the-” he pulled gently on the mess of tubes he was connected to. “-chemo and all that going. Second day and I haven’t been sick yet.” His tone was proud, like being sick was something he could control - and perhaps he thought he could.

Louis grinned back, ruffling the greasy curls in the way he knew his friend hated, choosing to ignore the clump that fell out with the movement. “That’s good!” He eyed the untouched lunch on the table at the foot of the bed. “Is lunch really that bad?”

The other boy spared a longing glance at the food, then turned back to his video game. He didn’t answer for a few moments, gun shots the only sound in the room, and when he did his voice was much quieter. “The whole concept of food is pretty unappealing, honestly.” His tone became much more enthusiastic when he spoke next. “Oh, Lou, you have to see the playroom here. They have so many games, it’s like going to a store.”

Leaning back, Louis let Harry disentangle himself, clearing a path so he wouldn’t trip while he stood up. “Are you sure you can leave?”

Harry waved a dismissive hand, glancing at the pole. “The drip’s finished. The nurse said I could get up when it was finished.” He grabbed Louis’ wrist, practically vibrating with energy as he pulled him up and out the door.

~*~

It didn’t take long until Harry’s hair was barely more than little wisps of fuzz clinging to his scalp. Within another week, that fell out too.

Whenever possible, Louis timed his visits for after the chemotherapy drugs had been started. Really, it shouldn’t have made a difference, since there was always something attached to the tubes in his chest, but Louis frequently found himself feeling conflicted about whether or not he wanted to stop the nurses from pumping the toxins into the already frail body in the bed. On the one hand, these drugs could potentially save his life; watching Harry’s health rapidly decline, on the other hand, was a different story entirely.

At first, Louis would be greeted by a restless Harry, unused to staying in one spot for more than a couple minutes and always bursting with stories from his day, but as time went on, he was lucky if the former bronze-haired boy was awake.

More often than not, he would be curled up on one side of the bed, subconsciously leaving enough room for Louis to slip in, the way he had when they were younger. Other times, a movie would be playing, background noise to their hushed conversations. Either way, it ended with Harry’s head lolling onto the other boy’s shoulder when he fell asleep, only to be awoken again when he felt sick. It made no sense, considering he scarcely ate, but a google search confirmed that it was, in fact, possible to ‘puke your guts out’.

Louis felt helpless whenever this happened, because no amount of comforting on his part made it better. All he could do was wave off the apologies for something that couldn’t be helped and run his hand along the baby smooth skin of his head. He chose to ignore the nurse when she bustled in, fiddling with the IV pole and tittering some rendition of “Just upping the ondansetron, dear.” It did little to comfort them. Afterwards, they would lay shoulder to shoulder in the hospital bed, Harry breathing heavily. Louis would wait with bated breath for the medicine to course through his friend’s veins; he could always tell because his exhales would turn into sighs and his hands would tremble. Yet another side effect.

Sometimes, he would clasp Harry’s hand in his as he fell asleep. When the shaking became especially bad, he would squeeze it tight until it stopped. Occasionally there would be returning pressure; it was feeble, but it was there, and that was all that mattered. More than once, Harry’s mother walked in to find them in this position, a doleful smile on her face.

Smiles were no longer a sign of happiness, it seemed, but an expression used only to mask the powerlessness they all felt.

When he was forced return home for dinner, there may have been a brief press of lips to his forehead, but Louis would never confirm this if questioned, so it was left alone.

~*~

Harry’s fifteenth birthday was a quiet affair. Louis took the day off school and the hospital gave him a day pass, allowing their families to go out for dinner.

Louis barged into Harry’s bedroom to find his friend standing in front of his full length mirror fiddling anxiously with the cuffs on his blazer. The blazer used to be fitted, stretching over his shoulders to the point where it almost looked too tight. Instead, it hung off of what could only be described as his waifish frame, loose where it was buttoned over his inverted abdomen.

He tore his gaze away from the sorry sight to look at Harry’s face. His bottom lip had obviously been bitten raw, a bad habit of his.

Harry spun around, his eyes glassy with unshed tears of frustration. “Just say it. I look pathetic,” he snapped. “Sick. Like I have cancer.” He spat the last word like it was a curse.

Frowning, Louis stepped further into the room until he was right in front of the other boy. He reached out, adjusting the collar on his shirt. “You look fine,” he replied, his tone firm. “You’re going to walk into the restaurant and all of the waitresses aren’t going to be able to keep their eyes off of you.”

Harry shrugged out of his grasp, turning back to face the mirror, glowering at his reflection. “Yeah, they’re going to be looking at me because I look funny.”

And - okay. Admittedly, his skin was an ashy gray and the hollows of his cheeks were more prominent than they ought to be, but he wasn’t about to say that.

“No, because you look good. Really good.”

His friend sighed, collapsing onto the edge of his bed, focusing intently as he put on his socks and shoes.

It was Louis’ turn to sigh, going to sit on the bed too. “Hey,” he said softly, placing a hand on his friend’s bony knee. “We don’t have to go if you’re not up for it. We would all understand if you want to stay in.”

Harry shook his head, squeezing the hand on his knee before rising resolutely. “I’m fine. I’m not dying. I’m fine.”

Louis wasn’t sure anymore who he was trying to convince, but he nodded anyway, following him downstairs.

At some point between his diagnosis and that moment, the shrunken teenager in front of him had grown twice his size, and he wasn’t sure when.

~*~

The date for the surgery had been set. Physical therapy visited daily, assisting Harry with exercises specially designed to strengthen his ankle for when it became his knee.

Harry had recently qualified for a different surgery than the orthopedic team had originally planned: it was a highly unusual procedure called a rotationplasty and it would allow him better movement and strength in that leg.

“They’re going to make me into a freak!” Harry had all but screamed when he told Louis.

“What are you talking about?” Louis had demanded, baffled; he couldn’t have heard him right.

“My knee is being replaced with my ankle. They’re just going to rotate it so my foot’s backwards.” Here, Harry had gone to pull at his hair and abruptly stopped when he couldn’t. That had done it. The dam had broken.

“No,” Louis protested, scrambling to the bed from where he was standing in the middle of the room. “You’re not going to be a freak. That’s really cool!”

“How?”

“Well, you’ll still be able to play soccer and ski and ride your bike, so that’s a good thing, right?”

The other boy scrubbed a hand over his face, contemplating. “I suppose,” he hiccuped.

“So,” Louis continued. “If you’re still able to do all that then why does it matter?”

“Because they’re turning my leg into a mutant thing.”

Sighing, Louis prepared for a long afternoon.

~*~

“Have you even finished your homework?” Louis’ mother stood blocking the doorway, hands on her hips.

“Mom…” he hedged, running his fingers through his chestnut coloured hair, until it stood on end “This is more important than homework, okay?”

His mother sighed. “Your grades have slipped. I know you care about Harry, but it’s not benefiting anyone if you have to repeat grade ten.”

“I know,” he admitted. “And I’m trying, I really am but.” He blew out a gust of air, trying to get a handle on his emotions. “This is Harry, though, and Harry is going through a big surgery today and it’s really important that I’m there while his foot is still facing forwards.”

Wincing, she relented, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m just worried. For both of you. You’re being a really good friend, and I couldn’t be more proud, but this is affecting you more than you’re letting on.”

Her son focused on the family picture hanging above the fireplace, analyzing everyone’s expressions. Anything to keep from making eye contact.

“Louis…”

“I have to go,” he said pointedly, pushing out the front door. Grades be damned, he was going to be there if it killed him.

~*~

Harry had got out of surgery five days ago, and out of the intensive care unit three days ago. It had been a success, but he had refused to look at his new leg until Louis got there.

So here Louis was, sitting with his legs crossed at the foot of the hospital bed, looking up intently at his friend’s face, his hand hovering over the blanket that concealed his leg. “Are you sure?” he asked hesitantly. “If you’re not ready that’s okay.” At this point, he might have been telling himself that.

The hairless boy focused his gaze on the tiled ceiling, exhaling shakily. “Just do it,” he ordered.

The sheet was removed. It revealed a slender thigh stitched to the back of his calf, his downward-facing foot measuring about the same length as the knee on his other leg. There was an angry looking scar that wrapped around the circumference of where it was joined, the edges just barely peeking out of the white gauze covering the area where the doctors made that life-altering incision.

Harry gasped while Louis bit his lower lip, unsure of the social protocol in this situation. It was shocking, sure, definitely much different seeing it in person as opposed to the drawings he’d found of the procedure. But, Louis reminded himself, it was either the knee or the whole boy in front of him, so it was such a small matter in the whole scheme of things.

Harry took it surprisingly well, considering he hadn’t so much as wanted to look at it until about five minutes prior. Reaching out his hand, he went to touch his leg, cringing like he was expecting it to attack or something equally horrible. He traced the bandages surrounding the scar, his foot-turned-knee, simply gawking at his new reality.

He pulled back abruptly, squeezing his eyes shut. “That’s enough for today,” he intoned, and Louis took that as his cue to cover it back up before sitting up on the bed.

“It’s a leg,” he gently reminded his friend, nudging his shoulder.

“I know,” Harry admitted. “It’s just a lot…”

Louis didn’t say anything else - didn’t know what to say. He simply grabbed the Wii controllers from the bedside table, wordlessly passing one to the boy beside him as he started up the game system, because if anything could fix this, it would be Mario Kart.

~*~

Postoperative physical therapy was a gruelling process, in Louis’ opinion. Harry would always return exhausted, sleeping for hours after the fact. Combined with the high-dose inpatient chemotherapy he was receiving, it turned into a noxious mixture.

Harry wasn’t able to use his prosthetic limb full-time yet, so when he wasn’t sleeping or being infused with something, the two of them became a spectacle in the oncology ward, racing up and down the hallways in his wheelchair. The nurses called them ‘terrors’, but enjoyed their amusement almost as much as they did themselves, and so made no move to stop them.

It took a month and a half of hard work before Harry began to hobble around the hospital with Louis on his prosthesis, assisted by crutches. It laced up his thigh, and took ages to put on correctly, but it was worth it to see the way his face lit up at his new-found independence. The bags under Harry’s eyes would have weighed anyone else down, but his smile was so buoyant that he lifted up not only himself, but everyone else around him.

His chemotherapy still took its toll, however, and like everything, there were good days and bad days. Some days required a little more coaxing and comforting, while on others Louis was practically wrenched out the door; he learned to appreciate the ache in his shoulder that came from being dragged around.

~*~

Harry finished his second round of chemotherapy approximately eight months after his initial diagnosis. That meant scans to see if the cancer was gone; if not, he would be forced to endure another round of chemotherapy.

This meant a gruelling day of CT scans, bone scans, and x-rays, as well as significantly shorter fingernails on Louis’ part. It was followed by another week-long hospital stay while the nurses monitored Harry for fevers due to his low white blood cell count; his immune system was so weak that even a cold could potentially be fatal.

The day before the intended discharge, the doctors declared Harry to have no evidence of disease - he was cancer free!

Like everything seemed to be, it was bittersweet. Louis pretended that he couldn’t hear the oncologist and Harry’s mother discussing relapse statistics. Sixty four percent survived five years after the initial diagnosis. It bothered him that each person - each patient, each life, each treatment plan, each lock of hair lost - was just a number; just another statistic.

He walked Harry out of the room in search of a vending machine for a celebratory chocolate bar.

~*~

Harry was home now, after nearly a full eight months spent hospitalized. Most of his time was spent on the sofa, recovering from the high levels of toxic substances he had received.

When Louis came to visit after school, the other boy was huddled under a blanket reading a book. “I brought you something,” he announced upon his arrival, brandishing a shopping bag.

The answering smile was blinding, if not a little cheeky. “Am I your girlfriend now,” he teased. “Have you got flowers behind your back too?”

Louis, obviously the mature one in this situation, stuck his tongue out, pulling a plastic carton out of his bag. “I brought you some yogurt!”

“What? Why?”

He cleared his throat dramatically. “‘To help replenish the natural bacterial flora in your intestines,’” he read. “It’s also strawberry flavoured and my mom said it’s better for you than the cookies I wanted to buy.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Harry laughed tiredly. “Let’s try some of your yogurt.”

~*~

During Harry’s time away from chemotherapy, his hair began to grow back. Louis would run his hand through the sparse bits of peach fuzz until his hand was batted away, followed by a half-impatient-half-amused look.

“You’re worse than my mother,” Harry had snorted after one such incident, turning his attention from the superhero movie playing on the television. “I hope you realize that.”

Louis gasped, placing a hand to his chest in mock shock. “I am not.”

The other boy simply shook his head, a fond smile on his face as he slouched to rest his head against the arm of the couch. His hand became tangled, however, in the tube running from his nose to a pole standing in the living room. He groaned in annoyance, doing his best not to pull it out of position.

Stretching his arm out, Louis carefully removed the plastic tube from where it was wrapped around the brunette’s bony wrist. “I’m sorry, what is this for again?” he asked, sitting back down.

“Thanks,” Harry mumbled, tossing the tubing over his shoulder. “It’s because I haven’t been eating enough with everything.” He shrugged, like it was no big deal.

To him, it probably wasn’t, considering he had tubes hanging out of his chest at all times, but if their positions were reversed, he probably would have gone crazy already. He could see why the feeding tube was in place though: the other boy had hollows in his cheeks that crossed the line from ‘vogue model’ to ‘unhealthy’ and the knobs on his knees rivaled that of actual doorknobs. Obnoxious beeping interrupted his train of thought, and he realized what had been a steady stream of yellow something flowing through the tube had abruptly stopped.

Harry’s mom came bustling into the living room, pressing a mess of buttons on the pole, then disconnecting the currently empty bag from her son. The feeding tube was now significantly shorter, coming only to where it was taped to the shoulder of his t-shirt. Straightening, she offered the two boys on the couch a smile. “Do you need anything? Juice, popcorn-” She glanced at the screen they were avidly watching. “Capes?”

“I’ll take the last option,” Harry teased from his perch. “So will Louis.”

She snorted, not unlike her son only moments ago. “I’m sure,” she chuckled, striding into the kitchen to begin making dinner.

“Do you think she was kidding about the capes,” Louis asked a little while later.

A shrug. “I wouldn’t mind a cape,” the other boy mused, tipping his head against his friend’s shoulder.

But Louis knew that not all superheroes wear capes.

~*~

There were many positives to being in remission, but the most obvious was the lack of hospital visits. It was only on clinic appointment days that Harry was forced to travel there for maintenance chemo and blood tests to confirm there was no reappearance of the cancer. The doctors were concerned about how his bone marrow would be affected by the treatment.

That summer, both of the boys’ parents let them spend an afternoon at a music festival an hour’s drive away from their house. The two of them seized the opportunity to create the most ridiculous get-ups they could.

When Harry was all ready to go, it was almost like he’d never been sick - if he overlooked the yellow face mask he wore over his mouth and nose - his head was covered in a tie-dyed rag with little bits of what could only be described as amber tufts sticking out; his skin was splattered in various shades of facepaint, and on his back he wore feathery black angel wings, borrowed from Louis’ little sister. It had initially been the product of a dare, but he wore them with the most jubilant smile possible, complete with dimples and all.

He was absolutely breathtaking.

Harry fell asleep after only a few minutes into the drive there - of course he did.

Louis took in the passing scenery, the rolling hills of his childhood, reminding him of the hours he used to spend playing with the other children in the neighbourhood. The days would never feel long enough, and everything was simple, all colour and light and sound and laughter and happiness.

He chanced a glance at his best friend sleeping soundly, his cheek smushed up against the window of the car, one of the ear loops on his mask that had slipped off, and wished for simplicity once more.

Harry sighed, deep in slumber, and slumped so he was lying across the length of the seat, his head pillowed against Louis’ leg. He ignored the paint that was surely staining the material of his shorts.

Later, he would slip them into the laundry and hope his mother wouldn’t notice.

They were given a summer.

~*~

Harry had a clinic appointment the day before the first day of school. It was supposed to be short, maybe three hours long, and afterwards he and Louis were going shopping for school supplies. They had been putting it off; Harry said it was because shopping was a waste of time unless they were buying video games, but everyone knew the real reason was because they didn’t want to jinx their period of being ‘normal’.

It was supposed to be a regular scan, one that would simply make everyone anxious but once the results came back they would laugh at how ridiculous they had been.

Except it came back and there was no laughing. In the six weeks since the last scan, a ‘shadow’ had appeared on his pelvis, this time joined by two nodes in his lungs.

Aggressive treatment began immediately and in an instant it was fallen locks of hair surrounding Harry’s head on his pillow.

~*~

Infections are to be expected in one without a functioning immune system, but immunocompromised patients don’t always show symptoms, and so it can easily go undetected; a central line is also a risk, as it makes the body vulnerable to the various bacterium that can enter the tubing and directly into the bloodstream. At least, that’s what Louis told himself so he wouldn’t freak out before he got to the intensive care unit.

He still came close.

Harry was attached to what could have very well been hundreds of cords and tubes. He was unconscious, looking so small underneath the machines, looming over him like watchful guards.

“Septicemia is a nasty business, but we’ll patch him up in no time,” a nurse assured Louis as he sat down beside his friend’s mom.

“Will he recover?” The all-important question.

The nurse nodded, smiling kindly. “In time. He’s just a little tired is all and his body needs to recover.”

Louis exhaled noisily, relieved. “Thank you.”

He thanked his many games of “Where’s Waldo” for his ability to locate Harry’s hand underneath all the machinery draped over the bed. When he did, it was cold and clammy, a peculiar shade of violet towards his fingertips. He squeezed it anyway, smiling at Harry’s mother.

This was just another bump in the road.

~*~

Just over a month had passed since Harry had been covered in wires, and he was far enough into recovery that the idea of beginning chemotherapy again was being tossed around.

Louis was worried, especially after the whole infection scare, but the tumours were wasting no time, growing more rapidly the longer they were left unattended.

This time, his friend was participating in a clinical study; it involved significantly higher doses but had a better success rate.

Harry was given a transfusion of red blood cells to bring up his energy levels and a weekend at home before he went in for another central line to replace the one that had nearly taken his life.

~*~

Harry had recently become interested in weather phenomena, and so his mother had bought him a book. It was meant to be saved for his days in the hospital, but he hadn’t hesitated to devour it, poring over the pages with such intent that even Louis had trouble getting his attention.

Louis was spending the weekend with Harry - or rather, he was at Harry’s house watching TV while Harry was sitting on the floor reading his book.

Harry was the first to speak. “It’s called the ‘aurora borealis.’” His ever-present book was clutched to his chest.

Louis indulged himself with an overly fond smile. “Yeah? How’s it happen?”

The other boy’s eyes widened, the expression almost comically exuberant. “There’s a lot of information,” he warned. “You might get bored.”

A shake of the head. “Guess you’re going to have to make it interesting for those of us who are of lesser intelligence,” he teased.

“You’re not dumb,” Harry insisted with a mannerism only he could achieve without it seeming put-on; he’d stood up, balancing on the balls of his feet like an angel about to take flight. “Sure?”

Louis lifted the corner of the blanket he’d curled up under. “Come teach me about light and dust particles.”

That’s all it had taken before he was rising off of his feet and launching himself into outstretched arms, and Louis had to remind himself not to squeeze this little ball of light too hard lest he turn into dust and take everything important with him.

~*~

October twenty fourth. It was a Monday.

Harry was scheduled for the reinsertion of his central line at 10:30 that morning.

Louis left his house at eight o’clock after a quick goodbye, because he was running late for school.

Harry’s mom had time to stop for coffee on the way there.

There was a parking spot available only a short walk away from the hospital’s main entrance.

The preoperative IV went in on the first try, a rare occurrence.

The doctors were running on time.

Minor details.

Sometimes, people forget that surgeons, no matter how many years of schooling they’ve completed, are human too. Operating rooms are high-pressure environments with plenty of room for accidents. Mistakes can happen at any time: a slip of a scalpel, improper cauterization of blood vessels, amputation of the wrong limb.

The placement of a central line is a simple procedure, one that’s performed multiple times each week.

During Harry’s procedure, a hole was supposed to go just under his collarbone, into the subclavian vein; somehow, it was punched through his heart and lung. He died on the operating table. He was revived and sent to intensive care.

Three days later, he died again from complications due to the infection in his chest and blood stream. This time, the doctors were unable to revive him. It was early evening.

The thing was, Harry had always been made to fly, always too much good to be contained in one person. He was the living, breathing embodiment of light and sunshine. He had so much love inside of him that it practically seeped through his pores, colouring everything around him in a variation of sickeningly sweet cotton candy pink, because he would never be told that it wasn’t okay for boys to like pink.

Keeping all of this in mind, Louis supposed that it wasn’t as shocking as it should have been that the world tried to strike him down. Harry was someone he would remember for the duration of his life, and while it wasn’t fair and it certainly wasn’t right to be this young, and he had wanted their last conversation to be more meaningful than a hurried “goodbye” he couldn’t begrudge his best friend eternal rest after the battle of his life.

Harry simply earned his angel wings a little earlier than planned.

~*~

The sun was shining, and it smelled of freshly cut grass. Louis was one of only a handful left in the cemetery, both his and Harry’s families standing just a little back to give him space.

He had yet to cry, and he knew everyone was waiting for the moment when he broke.

He stood next to the little hole dug in the ground, the stem of a blood red rose hanging from his hand. The petals had been crushed when he’d held it too tightly during the service; one fell onto his dress shoe, which he had polished the night previous until his arms had ached.

Gazing down at Harry’s final resting place, he winced, choosing to tilt his face to the sky, where it was warm. “I miss you,” he murmured, closing his eyes against the brightness of the sun. “So much.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. “I hope you have your northern lights up there. I listened, you know, when you went on about them. I know they were really special to you.”

He opened his eyes again to examine the flower in his hand. “Is it okay if I keep this?” he asked the sky. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to part with it yet.” He turned it around in his hand, watching the way the light reflected on the waxy covering of the petals. “I-” he faltered, his lower lip trembling with unshed tears.

A light breeze swirled around him.

Swallowing around the lump in his throat, he smiled, a true smile in what felt like forever. “Yeah, I guess I’ll see you later.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: obsessivestagram
> 
> comment and kudos?  
> feedback is much loved xo


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